


all your life you've never seen a woman taken by the wind

by Cirkne



Category: That '70s Show
Genre: Camera Man Steven Hyde, F/M, Pre-Slash, Weather Girl Jackie Burkhart
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-22
Updated: 2018-12-22
Packaged: 2019-09-25 00:19:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,469
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17110868
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cirkne/pseuds/Cirkne
Summary: Steven wakes up to find Jackie in his living room





	all your life you've never seen a woman taken by the wind

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this months ago for a weather girl au i couldn't stop thinking about and then just never went anywhere with it but since i still like it i decided to post it anyway
> 
> title from rhiannon by fleetwood mac

So Jackie’s infuriating, he’s well aware of this. She’s annoying and loud and grew up _rich_ , she’s everything Steven hates. She has also, somehow, become one of his closest friends. He wants to blame Kelso for inviting her over to his and Eric’s apartment the day she got the job. Apparently they had dated back in high school and Kelso was hoping he could score with her again. Jackie had ended up rejecting him as soon as he tried to make a move on her and Kelso, as he has many nights before, ended up on the floor of their kitchen eating ice cream with Fez. So maybe he shouldn’t blame Kelso because that could have been it. She rejected him, he never invited her round again. Over and done.

Unfortunately, obnoxious, oh-my-god-look-at-my-nails and gross-what-are-you-listening-to Jackie had ended up bonding with Donna and Donna, as he had learned many years prior, always had the last word. Not because she was intimidating or head-strong, no, Steven could fight with that. Because Eric had been hopelessly in love with her from the moment he met her.

So in the end, when Steven tried to protest Eric had said: _Please, Hyde, Donna likes her_ in the definitely pathetic way he does and Steven, because he has too many things to be thankful to Eric and his family for, had begrudgingly agreed to having her hang out with them.

And she’s here now, of course, in her pjs on his couch, watching his tv, eating what he’s sure is the last of his cereal, the duvet wrapped around her legs, her hair braided into two unproportional ponytails.

“What are you doing here, Jackie?” he asks, rubs at his eye, wonders if he’ll die if he eats Eric’s disgusting sugar free cereal. 

She almost jumps up at his words and pulls her hand out of the box of lucky charms like he’s caught her doing something much worse than eating dry cereal. She always has this look when she’s seen doing anything she doesn’t consider perfectly ladylike and proper. He had made fun of it once and she had gone completely quiet and folded into herself in the backseat of his car so he hasn’t made fun of it since. He figures a girl with self esteem low enough to date Kelso in high school is allowed to be weird about how she’s seen by others. 

He realizes she’s just staring at him, deer in the headlights kind of look and sighs.

“Jackie,” he repeats. “What are you doing in my living room?”

“Donna gave me a ride last night and then left to do her weird flirting thing with Eric in his room so I couldn’t get home and now I’m here to make your morning better with my beauty,” she’s smiling like she knows she’s annoying him and he considers pushing her off the couch for maybe a moment too long to write it off as a joke in his head.

“You could have taken a taxi, you earn more money than half of us,” he tells her instead, settles on the armchair next to the couch. The TV is playing reruns of the newlywed game.

“With my good looks?” she asks, pursing her lips. “Come on, Steven, someone would have kidnapped me or something. What would America do without their favorite weather girl?”

“Celebrate?” he asks and she throws the empty cereal box at him, misses and has it land on the carpet by his feet, turns back to the TV with a pretend offended look on her face. 

“Shut up, asshole, you’re taking me to work today,” she tells him and fixes the cuff of her pjs shirt sleeve.

“Why do you have extra clothes here anyway?” he asks, picks up the honey nut cheerio box and rummages it for anything she hadn’t eaten yet. “And why can’t Donna take you, she’s the one that brought you here.”

“Oh, Steven, a lady’s always prepared,” Jackie answers easily. “And Donna already left, some politician’s flight is supposed to land in like ten minutes.” 

“Forman with her?” Some poor bastard on the TV answers the question wrong about his first date with his wife and Jackie makes a face like she both feels bad for him and hates him. 

“Of course he’s with her, what’s a reporter without her cameraman?” she answers, slowly, and pats around herself before she realizes she threw the cereal box at him.

“What’s a hot blonde without her hopelessly in love with her childhood friend?” he asks back, stands up from the chair to go to the kitchen. “You want coffee?” he asks over his shoulder just so he could tell her to get it herself when she says yes, but instead Jackie goes:

“No, I already had mine and I put yours by the microwave.”

That takes Steven by surprise and maybe she’s expecting it but he’s been practicing his whatever attitude since he was five years old so she doesn’t get the satisfaction of seeing him react to it. The coffee’s there just like she said, with sugar but no milk just how he likes it and no longer hot but still warm enough to feel good going down his throat. It’s nice but it’s strange. So maybe they’ve moved past disliking each other and maybe he’s not as annoyed with her staying over as he likes her to think he is but they’re not kind like this. Not because they’re not friends- they are, but because of what kind of people they are. They don’t just _do_ things for others. 

He walks back to the living room holding Eric’s star wars mug.

“Is it poisoned?” he asks and then thinks how stupid of a question that is when you already drank half of it. She turns away from the TV for only a moment to look at him and then goes right back even though there’s a commercial break.

“I just thought I’d do something nice,” she says. “You’re driving me to work, remember?”

“Jackie, you don’t do nice things. You _ask_ for nice things. That’s the whole point of being a spoiled rich girl.” When she turns to glare at him, he takes another sip of his coffee and pretends not to watch her small, angry face.

“How would _you_ know, you poor orphan boy?” she asks and he hides the smile her words force out of him behind the coffee.

“Whatever, get ready, princess, we’re leaving in ten minutes,” he says and walks back to his room to go get ready himself. 

It takes them longer than that, obviously, since Jackie’s one of those morning shower people. She needs to curl her hair, too and he stands leaning on the wall by the door and keeps loudly telling her that he’ll leave without her. 

“Just let make up do it,” he says checking he has his keys and wallet for maybe the fourth time simply because he’s bored and she’s taking so damn long.

“They do it wrong,” she calls back from the bathroom where he can see her leaning on the sink through the open door. “I can’t go on air if I look bad, that’s the only reason people even watch.”

“Jackie, people watch to find out what the weather’s going to be like tomorrow,” he scoffs though he knows she’s right. The statistics show that most people tune in only when Jackie’s on screen. It’s sort of sickening but he can’t really blame them. He guesses if you only get to see her once a day for maybe ten minutes and she’s not talking your head off about shoes or other weather forecasters in the business, she _is_ attractive. 

When she finally leaves his bathroom, her purse on one shoulder and her jacket on the other, she stops to eye his Led Zeppelin T-shirt.

“I really wish they gave you guys a stricter dress code,” she sighs and kicks into her shoes. “Just because the audience doesn’t get to see you doesn’t mean it’s not important.”

“C’mon, Jackie,” he smiles. “You know I’d quit the moment they told me band T-shirts aren’t acceptable and what would you do then?” he asks turning off the light in the hallway.

“There’s plenty of cameramen,” she tells him, sweetly, pushes past him to leave his apartment and he follows suit, locks the door behind them.

“Oh but no one does it as good as I do, baby,” he grins and she pushes at his arm, catching the innuendo.

“Shut up, perv,” she laughs and takes the stairs before he can call the elevator. “We’re not listening to Zeppelin in the car.”

“I’ll make you walk,” he threatens and hurries his step to catch up to her because though small she’s surprisingly fast.


End file.
